MY PARENTS KNOW that I have better things to do with the July school holidays than travel to Bourke to coddle Olivia Pike, but they’re reluctantly letting me go.
‘Is it really any of your business, love?’ Mum asks me in the car on the way to the coach station at Tamworth.
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘Seems to me like you’ve already got enough to worry about. Study and . . . everything.’
‘I’ll only be a few days, Mum.’
It’s quite the odyssey from Barraba to Bourke, and it’s nowhere near any of Dad’s truck routes. I have to catch two buses, and between the bus travel and the layovers, the trip’s going to take a whole day.
As the second coach leaves Dubbo for Bourke, the woman sitting beside me asks me where I’m from. Then she asks me how far along I am.
‘Six months,’ I tell her proudly. Babies are good news to a woman like Jeanine from Nyngan, a hugely built, hugely creased grandmother who’s probably only in her fifties. ‘Most people don’t notice.’
‘You’re not showing much,’ says Jeanine. ‘It’s more the look on your face and the careful way you move, like you’re carrying an important secret.’
‘I am.’
It’s strange how sometimes talking to a stranger can be easier than talking to someone close to you. Or is it just the ties that bind women over pregnancy and childbirth? Whatever the reason, Jeanine and I hit it off. She tells me the stories of her births. She had five babies, but lost one of them when he was a teenager. He got hit by a car while crossing the street drunk. I tell her about Jamie and she knows exactly how to respond. At first she says nothing. She rests in her seat and I rest in mine, and we each imagine the other’s loss with tight chests and thick throats.
‘That baby’s gonna love you,’ she says finally.
‘I know.’
‘Gonna love you like you’re God. And there’ll be a piece of your brother in that love. You’ll see it in your baby’s eyes when they open. I found my son in my grandchildren’s eyes. He’s alive in all of them. I hope your parents are going to be at the birth.’
‘They sure will. My friends, too, probably.’
‘And the father? Will he be there?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’
Jeanine doesn’t press me. She knows better than to agitate a sad story. I turn away and stay wide-eyed on my seat, thinking about Nathan and the way I left things. The way he left things, too. He hasn’t exactly been falling over himself to get in touch. Will he be at the birth? Not if I don’t tell him, and at this stage I’m not planning to. I’m not giving his mother another chance to kick me in the teeth. A surge of anger thinking about the look on her face at the show sends a charge of energy – hateful energy – that never quite disperses. I move from anger to sadness and back again in an emotional double helix.
When the coach pulls into Bourke, I feel barely rested enough to face the task ahead of me. It’s something that I just don’t feel like doing. It frightens me. It makes me feel like my own childhood is far behind me.
I haven’t warned Olivia that I’m coming today. I could have. One of her dorm buddies coughed up all her contact details, but I didn’t want to give her a chance to pick up her guns. If someone threatened to turn up at my parents’ house with their irritating good intentions, that’s exactly what I’d do. Get armed.
Olivia’s foster parents are called Marilyn and Frank McCrae. They live in a small, well-kept house close to the centre of town.
‘You must be Shauna,’ says a tall, busty woman with big, blue glasses and a long, grey ponytail. She appears at the door a few seconds after I ring the doorbell. ‘I’m Marilyn.’
‘I didn’t realise you were expecting me,’ I tell her, shocked to be recognised, suspicious that Olivia’s friend grassed on me.
‘We’re not, but Olivia’s told us so much about you, I could pick you out in a crowd.’
She invites me inside and puts the kettle on. I notice when I get a better look at her that she’s got a big, fresh keloid scar on her cheek, near the right corner of her mouth. It’s distracting and I have to make an effort not to stare.
‘Ol’s not here at the moment. She’s out at the hardware shop with Frank, but she’ll be back soon.’
Marilyn offers me Anzac biscuits, which Fred and I wouldn’t knock back in a million years. I tell her that I’ve come to Bourke to convince Olivia to return to Oakholme. Marilyn doesn’t like my chances.
‘You’ll have your work cut out for you. We’ve tried, believe me. Everyone has. Her friends. Her psychologist. Her social worker. That nice woman from the school, Reverend Ferguson, has called several times. Olivia won’t even discuss it. What happened over there?’
‘There was a misunderstanding with one of the girls. Olivia took it really hard.’
Marilyn grimaces. ‘She takes it all so hard. Running away and going into herself is the way she deals with hard times. I have to say, though, things did seem to be improving after she started at boarding school. Reverend Ferguson reckons that it had a lot to do with her friendship with you.’
A giant, splintering stake of guilt plunges straight into my heart.
‘Actually, I didn’t do as much as I should have.’ My voice is crackly, like I’ve been up all night drinking beer and singing karaoke. Not that I’ve ever done that, but I can imagine. ‘I could have been there more for her, I think.’
‘Reverend Ferguson says you spent hours with her.’
I shrug, not sure how to explain. ‘She told me that you and your husband are the best foster parents she’s ever had.’
Marilyn smiles affectionately for a second before a storm cloud passes over her face. ‘I’d like to take that as a compliment, Shauna, but as I’m sure Olivia’s told you, some of our predecessors were pretty rotten.’
‘She mentioned that.’
‘Her mother was a violent alcoholic. Olivia was placed in foster care when she was just a baby. So was her half-brother.’
‘She has a half-brother?’
‘Had a half-brother. He died, unfortunately, a few years ago.’
I nod and the wooden stake in my heart twists with horror and empathy. ‘That’s awful.’
I don’t even want to know how he died because I’m already so upset I can’t take another bite of Anzac biscuit. I swallow what’s already in my mouth. When Olivia and her foster father, Frank, walk into the kitchen a few minutes later, I stand, half-hoping that Olivia will relent and fall into my arms. Or maybe I need to fall into her arms. I’m not sure.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Though her words are rude, Olivia’s tone isn’t. Behind the folded arms, I sense a heart that’s bursting with pride at the sight of me. ‘I thought that was what the Great Dividing Range was for? To keep all the shit in Sydney.’
‘Only during term time, Olivia.’
Frank, who’s small and bald, throws his head back and laughs. I smile, too.
‘Frank,’ says Marilyn, ‘this is Shauna. Shauna, Frank.’
We shake hands. ‘Great to finally meet you, Shauna. Olivia talks about you all the time.’
‘No, I don’t,’ mutters Olivia.
Both Marilyn and Frank are warm and they don’t seem to mind Olivia’s salty language and sharp-tongued sass. It could be a lot worse, I suppose, considering what some kids her age get up to.
‘Come and put your stuff in my room,’ says Olivia, pulling me by the wrist. ‘You are staying the night, aren’t you?’
‘Of course, she is!’ calls Marilyn after us. ‘Your parents know you’re here don’t they, Shauna?’
Actually, I had no idea where I’d be staying. And I don’t know how far my budget of about eighteen bucks would’ve gotten me, even in Bourke. I guess I was banking on being well-received.
Olivia stops in the doorway of her room and then turns to face me sheepishly.
‘I need to redecorate it, okay? I haven’t changed anything since I was ten.’
‘Don’t worry.’ I smile on the inside. ‘I won’t judge.’ Oh, but I do!
It’s like some Disney princess playhouse in there. From floor to ceiling it’s pink, white and silver. Her doona’s spangled with unicorns. There’s a one-eyed, white teddy half-tucked under her pillow. The walls are adorned with posters of ponies and kittens, and Elsa and Anna from Frozen. There are animal figurines on every spare inch of shelf and table space. A room less befitting of my little mentee’s outward spikiness I can’t imagine.
‘I know, I know, I’m going to do something about it. I just haven’t . . . had time.’
I dump my backpack on the chair by her desk.
‘I’ve got a trundle bed,’ she says excitedly, ‘so we don’t have to sleep top-to-toe or anything.’
‘Thank God for that.’
Almost without thinking about it, I peel off my jumper and my shirt rides up with it. In the time it takes me to pull my clothes back down over my bump, Olivia’s slammed two and two together. Her mouth drops open. Her blue eyes bulge.
‘You’re up the duff!’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘You’re huge!’
‘Shh!’
‘Oh my God, Shauna. I didn’t think you had it in you! You’re so stuck-up!’ She clamps her palms to her blushing cheeks. ‘You had sex?’
‘No, it’s the immaculate conception. I’m carrying the Messiah.’
‘Really?’ The word’s only halfway out of her mouth before she realises she’s being had. ‘Bullshit! You had sex with that guy from Kootingal, didn’t you?’
I shrug.
‘You did!’ she shout-whispers. ‘And you’ve been pregnant the whole time you’ve been looking down your nose at me.’ Olivia’s tone shifts from teasing to accusing in a fraction of a second. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘I’ve never looked down my nose at you.’
‘Like hell you haven’t.’
I sit down on the end of her bed. I really don’t feel like getting into an argument right now.
‘I’m sorry if I wasn’t always nice to you,’ I say. ‘But you weren’t always nice to me either.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with being nice,’ she says firmly. In her own space, she’s remarkably confident. Frightening, actually. ‘And it’s got everything to do with you being pissed off that I’m not black enough for you.’
I scoff. I shake my head. I blink rapidly. ‘You’re wrong.’
‘But I’m not wrong. I know it and I think you know it, too.’ Her mouth forms a small, hard line. ‘Don’t you?’
I feel too pregnant to argue with her seriously, but I force myself, out of respect for her, to consider what she’s saying. Usually I’d have a snap reaction to deny what’s being thrown at me, to reject it and throw something equally horrible back, but this time . . .
‘Yeah, okay. The first time we met, I saw that you were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and I assumed you weren’t like me. I didn’t think you’d had the same experiences.’
‘And what experiences are those, huh? To have your own parents dote on you your whole life? Is that what you’re talking about, you spoilt brat?’
‘No, it’s not, actually. I’m talking about having no choice about the way other people see me. People take one look at me and they make up their minds. People look at you and they think you’re one of them. Like Keli Street-Hughes. I could never be friends with her, not in a million years. Because I’m not passable.’
‘That’s not my problem!’
‘No, it’s my problem. And I suppose that’s what I held against you at the beginning. That you thought you were passable.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘And you don’t have to be. You really don’t. You can succeed in life the way you are.’
She sits down on the bed next to me, but not close enough to touch me.
‘Did you out me on purpose?’ she asks, without looking at me.
‘No! Shit, Olivia. I was happy for you to do your bidding, you know. It was an accident. I thought Keli had already worked it out.’
‘It wasn’t revenge for that thing at Central Station with the police? Or punking Lou-Anne?’
‘No, of course not. And if I’d known more about you, if you’d told me more about yourself, things would have been very different.’
I think about that afternoon she came into my dorm room.
‘That day you came to see me and Lou-Anne was there . . . well, what did you want to talk about?’
Turning to face her, I force Olivia to make eye contact with me.
‘I . . . I . . .’ she stammers, struggling to look me in the eye. ‘It was Marilyn. She’d just been told she had skin cancer on her face.’
Now I know where the scar on Marilyn’s cheek came from.
‘You were worried about her.’
Olivia nods and looks away. ‘She’s going to be fine. It’s just that . . .’
‘It’s okay to care about people, you know,’ I tell her. ‘I should have been there for you. I don’t know why I wasn’t. Maybe it was because I didn’t think you were black enough to deserve everything that was being done for you. Partly, anyway.’ I put my hand on her shoulder and she flinches but she doesn’t move away. ‘I’m sorry, Olivia.’
‘I’m sorry, too.’
‘But we don’t have to be sorry, you know. It’s not too late. Far from it. You could come back to Oakholme now and finish the school year.’
‘I can’t, Shauna. It’s too hard. I’m too embarrassed. And I’d miss my foster parents.’
‘You’re going to have to leave them one day.’
Olivia sighs. She stares. For a moment it seems like she’s wavering, like maybe she’ll agree to come back. Then, all at once, the tears stream down her face. She breaks away from my hand and covers her face with her forearms.
‘I’ve got a bad disease,’ she splutters. As she explains, I slowly realise what those sick days with the Oakholme nurse were all about. ‘It’s a sex disease. It’s not my fault, but now I’ve got it and I can never get rid of it. All I can do is take anti-viral tablets, but they don’t make it better all the time. Sometimes I get so sick that I can’t do anything. My body aches and I get these sores all over. Sometimes I’m so sore I can’t even sit down.’
‘Doesn’t sound like fun.’
Olivia sniggers through her tears. ‘No, it’s not. I don’t even know who gave it to me. I’ve probably had it since I was a baby. My mum’s boyfriend used to do things to me. Other people, too.’
‘I’m sorry, Olivia.’
‘What the hell do you have to be sorry about? You’re one of the only people who gives a shit about me.’
At least she realises.
‘I’m sorry you have to go through all that. But if you have to go through it anyway, why not go through it at Oakholme?’
‘It’s embarrassing. The teachers know when I’m sick and they know what it’s about. And now Keli and everyone else know that I’m Aboriginal. How do I come back from that?’
‘You show up.’
‘Easier said than done.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I point to my belly.
Olivia wipes her eyes with her sleeves. ‘Does anyone even know about that?’
‘You. Lou-Anne. Jenny. My parents. That’s about it.’
‘The school doesn’t know?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Self-Raising’s gonna shit!’
‘I know.’
‘What about the guy?’
‘I . . . I don’t know him that well, so I haven’t told him.’
Olivia doesn’t know what to say and neither do I. I realise that I don’t have any more wisdom to impart to her, and that now I’m waiting for her to give something to me. But what would she know? What does either of us have to give?
I end up spending two nights in Olivia’s trundle bed. She won’t agree to come back to Oakholme straight away, but she’s promised to think about it at least. I really get to know the softer side of Olivia while staying with the McCraes. For someone so spiny on the outside, she’s very sweet and gooey in the middle. And young. I suppose that’s what the armour’s for.
We go for walks around Bourke, which is flat and brown even by Barraba standards. It’s cold in winter, too, which is lucky for me because my big, bump-concealing jumpers and jackets are completely justified. I notice that the important buildings in town, like those in Barraba, are the buildings that were important a hundred years ago – the courthouse, the post office and the bank. Why does nothing change in the country?
We do the same kinds of things I’d do during the holidays at Barraba: meet Olivia’s old school friends in the park, have hot chocolate at the only good café in town, and watch videos stretched out in bed. Olivia can’t hide her pleasure at having me around. There’s obviously no value in being ‘passable’ in Bourke. I’d say one in three people we see on the street is Aboriginal. No wonder she feels comfortable here. No wonder she feels like an alien at Oakholme.
On my second night in Bourke, I check my social media accounts on Olivia’s phone. When two messages from Nathan O’Brien flash, my heart swells. Olivia, who’s watching my every e-move, says, ‘He’s obviously into you, Shauna. Why don’t you just tell him?’
‘I haven’t even read the messages yet!’
I shield the screen from her prying eyes. The first message says:
Coming back to Tamworth tomorrow after a month of shearing in Tassie with Luke. You around?
His friend Luke was at the music festival in Manilla on New Year’s Eve. I vaguely remember him and thinking how gorgeous Nathan was by comparison.
The second message was sent a day later – yesterday:
Are you getting these messages? I haven’t been able to contact you for a month – no internet access in the shearers’ quarters. I wanted to tell you at Easter show I was going to Tassie, but you took off so quickly. (Sad face emoji.)
Got to love a man who uses emojis. Fred the foetus is obviously moved, too, because he gives me a huge kick. The kicks have been getting stronger lately, Fred asserting his existence in case I forgot about him. I write back:
Staying with a friend in Bourke. Back tomorrow. Message tomorrow night?
A smiley face emoji comes shooting back immediately and my mood soars. I guess I really did want to hear from him. I log out and hand Olivia back her phone.
‘So?’ asks Olivia with raised eyebrows.
‘So we might hook up sometime during the holidays.’
Olivia claps her hands together like an excited child. ‘I can’t wait to meet him.’
‘Who says you’ll ever get to meet him?’
She shrugs, grinning.
If I didn’t know it before, I know it now for sure: Olivia Pike is expecting to remain part of my life. She must be on the brink of coming back to Sydney. My trip to Bourke has been a success.
The next day, when Mum picks me up from the station, she tells me there’s a surprise waiting for me at home. I don’t ask what it is. However, unable to contain her excitement, she spills the beans about the nursery before we’ve even reached the outskirts of Tamworth.
‘Dad bought a cot on Gumtree and it looks brand new! I’ve been sewing a quilt since the beginning of last term and now it’s finished, and yesterday I made a matching mobile. You should see it, Shauna! It’s so cute!’
‘Can’t wait, Mum.’
‘Oh, it was meant to be a surprise . . .’
I’ve never met anyone less capable of concealing their emotions than my mum. I’m shocked that she was able to keep the quilt under wraps for all this time.
‘Where did you set up the nursery?’ I ask her.
‘At home, of course.’
‘But where?’
Mum pauses and swallows. ‘Your brother’s room. You don’t mind, do you?’
I’m so happy that Mum’s cleared out Jamie’s old room that I could cry. Since his death it’s been a creepy shrine, complete with his unwashed clothes folded on the end of his bed and his sneakers with the laces still knotted in his wardrobe.
‘I’ve put all his stuff away in boxes,’ Mum assures me. ‘You can take it out and have a look at it whenever you like.’
‘I don’t want to look at his stuff, Mum.’
When we get home, there’s still some surprise factor because the room formerly known as Jamie’s room – now the nursery – is so beautifully decorated. The pièce de résistance, Mum’s quilt, is a marine-themed marvel. Each square of the quilt has a creature from the ocean sewn onto it. There’s a hammerhead shark, a sea turtle, a clown fish, a crab, a sailboat and more – all reproduced in the cardboard mobile dangling from the ceiling above the cot. It’s her signature style, with beautiful blues, greens and silvers, an Irukandji homage. It’s the ocean transported to dusty old Barraba.
Without meaning to, I run my hands over my belly.
‘This is amazing,’ I tell Mum, who’s thrilled that I like it so much. It’s a vast improvement on the tribute to a bad past that was in here before. I loved my brother to pieces, but we’ve been living under the shroud of his memory for too long.
Might my parents set themselves free now? Might we all set each other free?